Hello Microdot, Good Posting!! Anyone with just the rudimentary knowledge of history can recognize what is going on with this Tea Party or any other Ultra Conservative movement by any other name within the U.S. right now.
I was speaking with a good friend at breakfast last Sunday morning about how anyone could follow the likes of Sarah Palin. Palin proclaiming to be a national leader but did not know that North and South Korea were to separate countries or how they came about (I guess that whole Korean War just passed her by). Palin did not know that Africa was a continent and not a single country (Maybe too many Johnny Weissmuller “Tarzan” movies and did not get past the wishing she was Maureen O'Sullivan doing the “WILD THING” with Cheeta the Chimpanzee)!! Sarah could not even name what countries made up the Allied and Axis powers during WWII!?!?! (Makes one wonder if she has even turned on the “History Channel” but as we all know, Sarah reads all the magazines and news papers!!)
My very wise friend pointed out that those fawningly following Sarah…..Don’t know these history facts themselves!! A case of the ignorant and uneducated masses following an ignorant and uneducated leader. So is our political future to deal with in the U.S.
Unfortunately US totalitarianism tends to be...bipartisan. Palin may be una puta estupida....but hardly as powerful as Hillary or CA Sen. Feinstein (who approved of about all BushCo measures--war, PatAct, FISA, tax slashes). Obama himself increased the DoD budget, and along with Paulsen, brokered TARP. In principle, one's for traditional democratic principles, JFK, and opposed to the Foxnews bots, and teabaggers (tho some are a bit...isolationist)--but where in the F. are the JFKs? Gary Hart's one of the few slightly authentic Demos remaining.
What were say ...Don VV's politics?? I don't think DVV was as "a gauche" as some think (even as say Zappa-CO was). Ahhtistes tend to be a bit apolitical--Sal Dali, e.g. --not exactly the typical sentimental liberal-or conservative moralist, nor always supportive of say Andre Breton (tho..Dali did diss Hitler and the nazis, finally....)
I think that the political views of artists are not relevant here. I tend to draw the line with personal agendas projected into art. What Don Van Vliet would have thought of Palin projected through the lens of your personal political agenda does not interest me. I would have to draw my own conclusions, and I have not chosen to subject you to them. I have a very good friend who one day thought that I should know about his personal opinions of Patti Smith as filtered through the clouded lens of his "relationship, or attempt at a relationship" with Patti Smith. It only made him look like a bit of a jerk in my eyes. We have to be pragmatic in our political choices, because given our limited power and voices, pragmatism is our power. Do I condemn artists here in France like Jean Cocteau or Collete because they survived the occupation? NO....Do I have less respect for their work because they didn't sacrifice themselves during the Nazi Occupation? NO! That is not relevant. I would like to be able to promote idealistic, revolutionary principles, but realistically, we can only try to promote. You can only influence by living your principles, preaching never has the effect you desire.
In other words, though I might have over reacted, Mr. J, I have had many posts in the past from people who have tried to tell me that Zappa would have been a libertarian, Zappa would have been a Tea partier because they have projected their own personal agendas onto what has become a mythological slate. Van Vliet? He was a surreal expressionist! That is like trying to hold Dali responsible for his day to day political utterances, which I am sure could have been interpreted like the frikin bible to mean what ever the interpreter wanted them to say. Many artists are overtly political and art is very powerful. The interface between art and information is pretty thin. It is how the artist chooses to define himself and his work. Zappa definitely was a social artist and had the intellectual ability to back it up. Beefheart? He was something else.
Im not one to promote Libertarianism (or Osiris forbid, the TP), md, and I don't think Zappa was either, except perhaps in the good civil liberties sense (ie free expression, Due Process, opposing the Nanny-cop State, etc), not the hick-vegas-NRA sense. Even Chomsky at times has claimed to be a "libertarian leftist".
FZ was no marxist either from what I've read --in fact the apparatchiks banned ZappaMusick, until the Berlin wall fell. DVV was a different kettle of swordfish, es verdad--tho' I suspect he was not as "liberal" as his one-time crony FZ. The point being....Ahhtistes often tend to non-PC views. Dali a prime example--inquiring minds may google around. Dali--who also dissed the Reds-- at times may have mistreated his pets at times (he had a large menagerie, including exotic cats), yet he's still a great. Besides when corporate democrats oppose even fairly liberal measures--like the Legalization of Pot--Prop.19-- measure in CA, which ALL the leading DINOs opposed--political discourse becomes more or less meaningless.
I think that basically, we seem to be in agreement on many points. Expression and art has many forms and I would like to keep the possibilities as free as possible.
I find it slightly interesting that the soviets banned Zappa (not sure on CB but I wager he too was verboten).
Same situation in China now: the chinese authorities ban much western entertainment and pop kultur (as do Islamic nations).
Westerners may not care for that given their love of "Freedom" (or what they take to be freedom) but there's a certain method to the comrades' madness. Sad that they banned Zappa, but they also banned ...pop, disco, cheesy movies, and .....Larry Flynts
9 comments:
Hello Microdot,
Good Posting!! Anyone with just the rudimentary knowledge of history can recognize what is going on with this Tea Party or any other Ultra Conservative movement by any other name within the U.S. right now.
I was speaking with a good friend at breakfast last Sunday morning about how anyone could follow the likes of Sarah Palin. Palin proclaiming to be a national leader but did not know that North and South Korea were to separate countries or how they came about (I guess that whole Korean War just passed her by). Palin did not know that Africa was a continent and not a single country (Maybe too many Johnny Weissmuller “Tarzan” movies and did not get past the wishing she was Maureen O'Sullivan doing the “WILD THING” with Cheeta the Chimpanzee)!! Sarah could not even name what countries made up the Allied and Axis powers during WWII!?!?! (Makes one wonder if she has even turned on the “History Channel” but as we all know, Sarah reads all the magazines and news papers!!)
My very wise friend pointed out that those fawningly following Sarah…..Don’t know these history facts themselves!! A case of the ignorant and uneducated masses following an ignorant and uneducated leader. So is our political future to deal with in the U.S.
That list, sadly, seems little more than a litany of our recent history
Unfortunately US totalitarianism tends to be...bipartisan. Palin may be una puta estupida....but hardly as powerful as Hillary or CA Sen. Feinstein (who approved of about all BushCo measures--war, PatAct, FISA, tax slashes). Obama himself increased the DoD budget, and along with Paulsen, brokered TARP. In principle, one's for traditional democratic principles, JFK, and opposed to the Foxnews bots, and teabaggers (tho some are a bit...isolationist)--but where in the F. are the JFKs? Gary Hart's one of the few slightly authentic Demos remaining.
What were say ...Don VV's politics?? I don't think DVV was as "a gauche" as some think (even as say Zappa-CO was). Ahhtistes tend to be a bit apolitical--Sal Dali, e.g. --not exactly the typical sentimental liberal-or conservative moralist, nor always supportive of say Andre Breton (tho..Dali did diss Hitler and the nazis, finally....)
I think that the political views of artists are not relevant here. I tend to draw the line with personal agendas projected into art.
What Don Van Vliet would have thought of Palin projected through the lens of your personal political agenda does not interest me. I would have to draw my own conclusions, and I have not chosen to subject you to them.
I have a very good friend who one day thought that I should know about his personal opinions of Patti Smith as filtered through the clouded lens of his "relationship, or attempt at a relationship" with Patti Smith.
It only made him look like a bit of a jerk in my eyes.
We have to be pragmatic in our political choices, because given our limited power and voices, pragmatism is our power.
Do I condemn artists here in France like Jean Cocteau or Collete because they survived the occupation? NO....Do I have less respect for their work because they didn't sacrifice themselves during the Nazi Occupation? NO!
That is not relevant.
I would like to be able to promote idealistic, revolutionary principles, but realistically, we can only try to promote. You can only influence by living your principles, preaching never has the effect you desire.
In other words, though I might have over reacted, Mr. J,
I have had many posts in the past from people who have tried to tell me that Zappa would have been a libertarian, Zappa would have been a Tea partier because they have projected their own personal agendas onto what has become a mythological slate.
Van Vliet? He was a surreal expressionist!
That is like trying to hold Dali responsible for his day to day political utterances, which I am sure could have been interpreted like the frikin bible to mean what ever the interpreter wanted them to say.
Many artists are overtly political and art is very powerful. The interface between art and information is pretty thin. It is how the artist chooses to define himself and his work.
Zappa definitely was a social artist and had the intellectual ability to back it up.
Beefheart? He was something else.
Im not one to promote Libertarianism (or Osiris forbid, the TP), md, and I don't think Zappa was either, except perhaps in the good civil liberties sense (ie free expression, Due Process, opposing the Nanny-cop State, etc), not the hick-vegas-NRA sense. Even Chomsky at times has claimed to be a "libertarian leftist".
FZ was no marxist either from what I've read --in fact the apparatchiks banned ZappaMusick, until the Berlin wall fell. DVV was a different kettle of swordfish, es verdad--tho' I suspect he was not as "liberal" as his one-time crony FZ. The point being....Ahhtistes often tend to non-PC views. Dali a prime example--inquiring minds may google around. Dali--who also dissed the Reds-- at times may have mistreated his pets at times (he had a large menagerie, including exotic cats), yet he's still a great. Besides when corporate democrats oppose even fairly liberal measures--like the Legalization of Pot--Prop.19-- measure in CA, which ALL the leading DINOs opposed--political discourse becomes more or less meaningless.
I think that basically, we seem to be in agreement on many points. Expression and art has many forms and I would like to keep the possibilities as free as possible.
I find it slightly interesting that the soviets banned Zappa (not sure on CB but I wager he too was verboten).
Same situation in China now: the chinese authorities ban much western entertainment and pop kultur (as do Islamic nations).
Westerners may not care for that given their love of "Freedom" (or what they take to be freedom) but there's a certain method to the comrades' madness. Sad that they banned Zappa, but they also banned ...pop, disco, cheesy movies, and .....Larry Flynts
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